After
years of bachelorhood, Eddie (Ben Stiller) starts to wonder
if he is being too picky about the women he meets. So when
a chance encounter with an alluring blonde named Lila (Malin
Akerman) leads to a sweet romance, Eddie impulsively proposes.
But right after the wedding, as the newlyweds get to know
each other on the drive down the California coast, Eddie begins
to realize he's made a terrible mistake. Soon after reaching
their exotic Mexican hideaway, he falls for the down-to-earth
Miranda (Michelle Monaghan), who has no clue he's on his honeymoon.
Now Eddie has to find a way to extricate himself from his
days-old marriage without losing the girl of his dreams.

Movie Review:

If anything, this inferior same-name remake of Elaine May’s
marvelous 1972 tragicomedy, “The Heartbreak Kid,”
represents Hollywood’s stinging practice of simplifying
and negating the pain that is so intrinsic in humour by resorting
to crude depictions of misogyny and plain heartlessness.

Never
did I imagine that the perpetrators involved this time would
be the Farrelly brothers, splendid situational comedians by
nature and who have, to be fair, set the stage for the Judd
Apatows of the world to mix deep-rooted affections for their
characters with audacious transgressions and mucky yucks of
physical comedy that felt like they were laughing with their
characters rather than at them. It’s ironic that this
script seems riper than their previous features in order for
them to tap into those particular attributes. Consider their
most popular films: “Kingpin” and its lovingly
sleazy heart of gold as it navigates the tender journeys of
two perpetual underdogs in a ruthless sport, “Dumb and
Dumber” and the undercurrent of loneliness present for
two friends that just don’t quite fit in with everyone
else, “Me, Myself & Irene” and its observations
on parenthood and manhood, “Shallow Hal” and its
sympathetic perceptions on beauty, and finally “There’s
Something About Mary” with Ben Stiller’s sad schmuck
who finds himself together with the girl of his dreams.

Neil
Simon’s original and often painfully perceptive script
contains traces of truth about male anxiety and was bolstered
by the pathos present in May’s intelligent direction
and tangible sense of sadness shared by its characters. The
framework shared by the two films revolves around a newlywed
(Stiller) who immediately realises that he’s married
the wrong girl (Malin Akerman) just as he meets and falls
for the perfect girl (Michelle Monaghan), all during his honeymoon.
There’s an insistent repugnancy in this premise for
Stiller’s Eddie Cantrow, which would have been more
apparent if it wasn’t for the undue dumbing down of
his wife Lila into a maniacal caricature. This was a situation
made uncompromising in the original film, with Lila being
a wholly sympathetic mess of a woman, ditched for a wry blond
bombshell by a selfish and insecure man who only sees value
in the things that remain unattainable. Forgive the comparisons,
but there is something clearly being redacted here that makes
recycling its entire premise reductive and into a counterintuitive
proposition on modern marital and social ceremonies.

As
far as the film goes, it remains vicious towards the wrong
characters and for the most part fair with the ones that do
deserve scorn. The rewritten script shades its characters
outside the lines in a story that needs exactitude and manoeuvring
by its married man, instead of the over-the-top approach that
desperately needed a slight toning down in order to fulfill
the warm side of their comedy. However, this imbalance does
not take away from the Farrellys’ knack for perfect
comic timing, exceptionally performed by the enthusiastic
Akerman, who despite getting an unfair shake character-wise,
manages to upstage Stiller’s straight-man shtick (that
veers dangerously close to “There’s Something
About Mary” territory) in their scenes together. And
the casting of Jerry Stiller is always a smart one.

This
is the Farrellys’ weakest and most desperate film to
date. Yes, even more so than “Osmosis Jones”.
Even so, there are few moments of inspiration present in the
film but the strange thing is that these moments emerge from
the subtle interactions that are so inherent to the nature
of the characters, which are characteristics of the best Farrelly
Brothers films. Perhaps this might just be an indication of
what this remake was lacking.

Movie Rating:

(Just not that funny or even interesting compared to the far
superior original film)